Thanks to the attached mobile computing power your smartphone camera can be used for more than just taking holiday snaps. A product from Israel-based company Healthy.io is a prime example. Dip.io uses a smartphone and a dipstick to perform urine tests that can detect ten indicators of disease, infection, and pregnancy-related complications.

The system is very simple from a user point of view. You capture a photo of the dipstick against a color and Dip.io does the rest. The app uses machine learning to color correct the image, considering camera make and model, lighting conditions and a variety of additional variables. The app then performs an instant analysis.

In clinical trials undertaken in the process of receiving FDA approval, Dip.io was capable of matching the accuracy of professional laboratories. This is achieved at a considerably lower cost and less inconvenience to the patient as the system removes the need for visits to a physician and lab referrals. In addition, it does away with waiting time for the results.

The makers of the system say that this could encourage more patients to undertake regular screenings which could save them dialysis or even a transplant by detecting signs of kidney problems early.

According to an analysis by York Health Economics Consortium, in the UK alone the new technology could result in early diagnosis of more than 33,000 cases over five years and estimated savings of more than £670 million ($867 million). Healthy.io is currently running a pilot program with the pharmacist Boots UK. Women who suspect they have urinary tract infections can use the system to self-test and receive treatment from a pharmacist without seeing a doctor or visiting a lab. The results of the pilot are expected to be announced in May.

Comments

I'd rather want a wearable like an Apple or Samsung watch to be able to measure the pH value in my blood through the skin.Echo Labs, now called Spry health, was deep in research for this a few years ago. I've not read much about it lately, so not sure how developments are going.

Not to be a buzz kill, but what is the main advantage over the already existing urinary dipsticks costing less than a half dollar a piece? You don't have to compare the colors, but opening the app to check the colors will probably take just as much time as doing it yourself (with the color coded sticker on the box). Accuracy could be greater but is not needed in a diagnosis of urinary infections or diabetes. The marketing does look nice dough!

The phone app is one part of a UTI test kit that includes a box with a cup, dipstick and color chart, but the app has no reference to how to obtain the box. On the main web site, the product is described but again there is no way to order the kit. So I am left wondering, why is this a thing in DP Review if there is not yet a product that could be purchased?

@Lars RehmI see Healthy.io claim to use „computer vision algorithms and unique calibration method” for the color calibration. And “AI that delivers urinanalysis at clinical accuracy”.But *NO* claim that AI was used for color calibration.

The Technology Review article mentions using AI to “correct the color, taking into account ... other variables (... has dipped the stick for ... two seconds...)”. That’s different from color calibration — what you imply by skipping over the additional parameters part.

@falconeyes: We both know you're simply splitting hairs and arguing semantics, but for the sake of clarity on the definition of artificial intellegence/machine learning...

Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence and, as mentioned in the article, it is used 'to color correct the image, considering camera make and model, lighting conditions and a variety of additional variables,' as noted in the MIT article.

As for color calibration, the process is precisely what's described in the MIT article using the same quote above; it's taking the information of the camera, lighting conditions and other variables to get an accurate result.

@Gannon Burgett@Lars RehmI would agree I’am splitting hairs if it were about machine learning vs. AI. That wasn’t my point though.

Your article (after omitting detail from MIT Technology Review - which isn’t “the MIT” btw) makes the reader think machine learning was used to color-calibrate the smartphone photo. However, the original article (and the vendor’s website) makes *me* believe machine learning was used to derive a valid labtest result from the smartphone photo after it was color-calibrated using a more traditional algorithm.

Arastoo Vaziri, having been to many S. E. Asian countries, it is my experience, that smartphones are very very common. It’s easier to install cell towers than a new copper network. So called 3rd World Countries are very well connected. Smartphones are commonly used to help market produce etc, saving car or motorbike journeys. This app (and no doubt similar ones to come) used in conjunction with health clinics is a great development. Doctors for example already routinely use smartphone cameras to send images of potential skin cancers to dermatologists for an opinion.

i very much like the idea of getting instant-results med/lab tests at home. vastly better than multiple visits to doctor's waiting rooms, money-printing greedy labs and everything around it.

what i don't like is the "cloud"/privacy aspect. i would want such apps to do process all data 100% locally on my device, without transferring any of my medical data to some unknown external database/s, where it likely will be used for all sorts of undesirable purposes (from ad spamming to insurers to state/public data krakens) and/or hacked.

best would be no app or "AI" involved at all, but improved dipsticks/physical test devices that display results in such a clear and unambiguous way that users (with average natural IQ) can interpret and understand test results "at a glance".

Snake oil, This is a highly regulated industry and product type, this is going nowhere, it's impossible to make a smartphone into a medical device. There is a shift ton of regulatory and manufacturing process you have to put n place, document and submit, (in every country you want to sell it), including full supplier audit in order to do that.

there is an attachment my doctor uses (can stick to the back of the mobile phone, links on Bluetooth) that can do an ECG on the spot, needs two fingers, and even emails the report to him. And acceptable to all medical insurers etc.

Pharmacists in the UK are highly trained, qualified and registered.They are more than capable of assessing straightforward prescriptions or, alternatively, referring to a specialist if they have concerns on the results of the test. If there is no infection, they simply won't prescribe antibiotics.I can see the benefits of quick intervention in the majority of cases where a common urine infection is indicated, attending a GP appointment, in many cases, is not quick.

Wonder how it samples for light source and subsequent correction? Also, how consistent is the colour signature within each phone make/model. But looks promising. I imagine before too long we will be offered lab-on-a-chip devices to undertake self diagnosis in conjunction with phone. What was the doc's name on Star Trek? He was doing that 45 years ago.

The main point here is not if it is cool. The main point is how well it works. This product is a bit similar to printer calibration. You could make a printer calibration product based on mobile phones and reference cards. Such products, based on using a scanner, has been sold, and they do not really work.

But - maybe it works - and an article to shows that to be the case (or not) would be more interesting.

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